Hope For OCD & Eating Disorders

How a quest for control can manifest itself in many ways.

By Tom D.

Every so often, my life seems like it’s falling into a vast hole.

The tougher things get, the more the hole deepens.

When I was younger, it was unrequited love, a poor diet, a lack of direction, and perpetual insecurity that made me feel like I was struggling to get myself in the clear. More recently, the effects of work and graduate school have nearly buried me.

This feeling is rooted in my 20-year struggle with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and eating disorders. These issues, I once thought, would suffocate me into oblivion.

When their effects take hold, the proverbial abyss seems too big to overcome. I withdraw and lose friends; my professional and personal performance declines.

Believing in the future has helped me develop character. And with character comes strength.

I’ve taken medication, gone to therapy, visited with physicians, and undergone acupuncture. I’ve talked to friends and family, whose stock responses—such as “Get over it!”—never help.

The only thing that’s saved me is what saves anybody who endures stress or tragedy.

Hope.

Believing in the future has helped me develop character. And with character comes strength. It’s not easy, but the longer I hold a positive thought in my mind, the better off I am.

I’ve been told that the mind is the body’s strongest organ. Over the past two decades, I’ve developed the ability to convince myself that I can push through whatever crisis I face.

Frequently, I remind myself of a quote from the movie Wall Street: “Man looks in the abyss; there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.”

For many years, I’d have periods that made me believe the abyss was no longer relevant. Then, a stressful event would drag me down. Indeed, the symptoms of OCD and eating disorders almost always appear in stressful times. It could be that I’m taking on too much. In college, it happened after a breakup.

First, I’ll feel it in my stomach: indigestion, lack of appetite, fussing over my weight and health. Then come the obsessions. I’ll ask myself repeatedly: ‘What’s wrong with me? Am I sick? Do I have cancer?’

From there, everything snowballs and the abyss appears. I develop the urge to overeat and purge. I show a fear of eating fatty foods. I get moody and downright nasty.

I’ll look in the mirror, and see my worn, depleted self. I’ll hear others wonder why I’ve been so withdrawn.

Two decades ago, I struggled to cope with this condition. Now, I’ve developed the strength to admit that I have issues so I can face them.

I maintain this hope even now, as the abyss has never really left my sight. A year ago, I nearly suffered a nervous breakdown.

On a reporting assignment in Trenton, New Jersey, stomach acid and my obsessions about it forced me to stop my car, jump out, and pace the pavement.

Facing the Delaware River, I could think only of the stress filling my head.

I called my wife, practically begging that I get help from a doctor. I was convinced it was a physical issue. The doctor said it was mental. Admit it, they both urged me, so we can address it.

It was exactly what I didn’t want to hear. But as I stood at the foot of the river, staring at that abyss, I conjured up enough hope to find my character.

Then, I thought of a quote from another movie, The Shawshank Redemption: “Hope is a good thing—maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.”

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